Penrod

of nineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him n

wn-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the costuming to be "as medieval and artistic as possible." Otherwise, and as to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were no arc

s in a pair of silk stockings, once blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere amp

of vivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accord with various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at a dye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract m

onspicuous usefulness; at all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified and moderated, now t

wentieth century had failed to shake his faith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield was putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how hopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously she received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of

ery perceptible at a distance. Next, after being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet i

olderingly, "I'd like to know ho

ered through pins, was evide

neck, pinned ribbons at random all over him

ing to a question put by her mother. "They a

ed Mrs. Schofield, gently. "Sir Lancelot must

ing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the words of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!" (The aut

was in his range of vision and, though he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a week earlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He began to form a not

to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of red flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper advertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, to the shoulder of

been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations had not been s

nrod's first sight of himself as the Child Sir Lancelot. But Mr. Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold Ramorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes at his command, the sentiments which animated Pen

n the mirror, he was sure that no human eye could fail at first glance to detect the difference between himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold, wrinkle, and void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues, invoking earthquake, eclips

tish middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume was a success. Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by Sir Thomas Malory or Alfred Tennyson;-for that matter, he looked like nothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margaret took their places in the a